Arthur Schwarz was onto something. It was the turn of the century, and people were tiring of the same old entertainment. But technology was advancing. What if a device could trick our brain into seeing something that was not truly there? What if, he thought, we could look through a portal to another world?

Schwartz doesn’t work at Oculus, or HTC, or Sony. He operated a photography shop on East 14th Street in New York City. But it’s no longer there, instead occupied by a branch of Chase Bank. He’s no longer there, either; Schwarz died long ago. But when his patent for a stereoscope was granted in 1903, he devised an object, and a vision, that looks like the future even a century later.

Fourteen years earlier, in another part of the world, a company called Nintendo started selling playing cards.

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Earlier this month, Nintendoannounced the next addition to its Labo line of do-it-yourself cardboard contraptions. The simply named “VR Kit” arrives on April 12th. And their decidedly antiquarian take on the medium might just solve a number of problems that still malign this promising, but slow-to-launch, format.

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Nintendo’s vision for VR doesn’t promise some neon-flecked cyberpunk rainstorm or a sweeping digital utopia in which to live forever. Instead, it looks a lot like Mr. Schwarz’s patent from 1903. Plus or minus a paper elephant.

Nintendo has a history of reappropriating ideas. In the 1960s, bowling was a fad in Japan. So companies built hundreds of bowling alleys. The fad died; soon there were hundreds of empty alleyways. Nintendo bought them for cheap and turned them into indoor shooting galleries using the same basic technology that powered their Custom Gunman toys. The “Laser Clay Ranges,” as they were called, were a hit.

The same frugality and resourcefulness has helped chart their course through the last forty years of video game history. “Donkey Kong” was built from the carcass of another, unpopular game (Radarscope). The Game Boy staved off higher-powered competitors for a decade using low-tech hardware and monochromatic screens. The Wii remote was first bandied about as an add-on for the GameCube; instead of throwing away the idea, Nintendo stuck it in the vault and relaunched the product when the time was right.

Those three recycled ideas–the first cinematic arcade game; the first modern-day handheld; a motion gaming phenomenon–were world-beaters and industry changers. Their next big idea isn’t to rewrite the rules but remind us of where we’ve already been. The Kyoto-based company believes the time is right to finally launch its version of virtual reality. And this rendition of the future does not look the same as what we’ve been told to expect.

The stated goal of so much VR has long been “immersion.” But the result has been something closer to seclusion. Nintendo’s vision for VR is a pointed rebuke of what has been seen as the ideal experience: an all-encompassing escape to some secondary world other than our own.

VR proselytizers often state the Holodeck as the final outcome for video game and virtual reality progress. But this fictional tech, first introduced on “Star Trek,” always struck me as an absurd ideal. The characters that used it lived in space. If they opened the wrong window, they’d get sucked into a black void of cosmic death. They needed a virtual reality because their own was unsustainable and cruel.

We do not live on a spaceship. Nintendo’s take on VR is one that doesn’t seek to replace reality but elaborate on it in surprising, albeit temporary, ways.

Nintendo’s Labo VR kit is better understood as a successor to its pre-video game novelties. What was Gunpei Yokoi’s Ultra Hand–an extendable arm with pincers and Nintendo’s first consumer-grade toy–but a kind of cobbled together alteration of reality? Whereas modern VR headsets are designed for extended, solitary use, Labo VR is purpose-built to be a toe-dip into extraordinary waters: The goggles have no strap and are meant to be held to your face. And then, according to marketing bullet points at least, you’re expected to share, physically removing the goggles and giving them to someone nearby. Leave it to Nintendo to turn the stated end-goal of an entire medium and fold it inside-out.

(Or maybe they’ve just added punctuation. Labo VR is meant to be Virtual, Reality; one and then the other, an experience apart followed by an experience together.)

Days before Nintendo’s announcement, a Twitter thread made the rounds from Antti Oulasvirta, a professor at Aalto University in Finland, explaining why he feels modern virtual or augmented reality hasn’t yet hit the mainstream. His are not the ponderings of an armchair analyst; he researches computational methods and teaches in a program devoted to the study of user interface. His first four reasons–arm fatigue, lack of object manipulation, inaccuracy of input, unnatural gestures–are largely solved by Labo VR’s constraints.

Research shows arms tire after ninety seconds of extension. So games designed as short-term, shareable activities will limit discomfort. Much modern VR software demands that you interact with virtual objects floating in space; Oulasvirta says the disconnect players feel isn’t just due to the novelty of the behavior, but evolution itself. “Our hands have evolved for manipulating objects,” he writes, “not poking in the air.” Beyond the goggles themselves, Labo VR’s suite of projects asks you to clutch, twist, grab, and push real, tangible things.

All we’ve seen of Nintendo’s first virtual reality games is a promotional still shot of predictably happy teens holding a series of odd, mechanical playthings. Extrapolated from this has been a bevy of predictably unimpressed reactions from gaming press and the internet at large. The truth is we don’t know what these experiences will be. The project list reads like bad minimalist poetry: “Blaster. Camera. Elephant. Bird. Wind Pedal.” But what will we actually do? How will these experiences feel? If you’ve written off Nintendo’s first stab at what many see as the next great leap for interactive entertainment due to frame-rates, resolutions, and other cold numbers, I suggest you refer to the entry on “Boy, Game” in the annals of history and see what you find.

Will Labo VR be the mainstream breakthrough virtual reality needs? No. Will it be a major platform for Nintendo going forward? Probably not. Is it a niche experiment using unproven technology that’s worth paying attention to, if for no other reason than it stands to be weird and fun and different? Absolutely.

What we think of as true “virtual reality” may come to pass one day, but it won’t be called VR. When George Gilder accurately described a smartphone in his book “Life After Television,” he called it by another name: a teleputer. That phrase made sense thirty years ago, but now sounds foolish and naive. The same naivete results in thinking our present reality needs to become any more virtual than it already is. VR as we think we know it is doomed, a desert of empty bowling alleys. What VR will become is both inescapable and unknowable.

In the meantime, Nintendo is here doing what it does best: plucking meat from a dead thing and making it palatable to a vast, underserved audience.

Nintendo’s succinct Pokémon-themed Direct video kicks live at 9 a.m. ET Wednesday and you can watch it right here for all seven glorious minutes.

While the company hasn’t said what about Pokémon it will be talking about, expectations run high that the Nintendo Direct will be about the next, eighth generation “Pokémon” game that’s coming out later this year. The Nintendo Switch exclusive title was first mentioned by Nintendo during E3 2017.

Nintendo released a pair of spin-off Pokémon titles in November 2018, “Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!” and “Let’s Go, Eevee!” Enhanced remakes of the 1998 title “Pokémon Yellow,” they feature a more user-friendly Pokémon capturing system based on the popular AR mobile game “Pokémon Go.” The series’ traditional turn-based combat only happens when battling other trainers and gym leaders. The games also did away with random encounters by showing wild Pokémon in the game world. If a player wants to capture one, they need to interact with it in the environment.

The Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara shared a little bit of information about the untitled Pokémon game in a June 2018 issue of Famitsu magazine, according to Siliconera. The 2019 “Pokémon” game will be “a completely different game” than the “Let’s Go” titles, he said. “It is not an entry game, but a game that we want longtime fans of the ‘Pokémon’ series to look forward to,” he said.

The Nintendo Switch version of the game includes all of the elements of the mobile version, plus features new global servers where players can take on anyone in the world. Additionally, Tencent confirmed that the Switch version will include ranked mode on the console and an exclusive new motion sensor hook war game mode, which fans can play by swinging their Nintendo Switch Joy-Con.

Tencent said it plans to host a ‘status match’ event after the Nintendo Switch launch that will reward mobile players who have played enough to unlock characters and transfer those rewards to their Nintendo Switch version. Details on this event will be released soon.

It remains unclear if the game will require a paid subscription to Nintendo’s Online Switch service. Tencent did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.

Developers Tencent Timi Studio told Variety in June that the game could be used to introduce esports to the Nintendo Switch.

“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” is expanding its collection of new and returning stages by adding a selection of new areas to fight in, bringing the official total up to 103.

During Wednesday’s “Smash”-centric Nintendo Direct, game director Masahiro Sakurai was on hand to discuss the new additions to the game, mentioning that the new selection of stages will be arranged in order of their debut in the “Super Smash Bros.” series. You’ll find plenty of new places to brawl, like Dracula’s Castle of “Castlevania” fame, New Donk City Hall from the whimsical “Super Mario Odyssey,” Magicant from “Earthbound,” Gamer W inspired by “WarioWare,” and more.

While there are over 100 unique stages to choose from, the total boosts itself beyond 300 when you factor in the popular Battlefield and Omega forms of each stage as well. With eight-player battle support for each fight, there’s a battleground appropriate for any scuffle.

The new Stage Morph feature will also allow players to transition between two different areas. You must toggle this option on as it won’t be available by default, but it allows you to shift between one stage to the next right in the middle of your fight.

To go along with all the new stage additions, there’s a wide selection of musical tracks, with 900 tunes to choose from, broken down into 28 hours of gaming music. You can select your favorites to listen to via the new My Music mode, which can also be utilized in the Switch’s Handheld mode as something of a portable jukebox. My Music will let you choose from a wide selection of tracks from the game your stage has been pulled from, letting you customize your experience even further.

The cooperative free-to-play “Warframe” has more than 38 million registered players worldwide. The third-person online action game has players using the Warframe armor as the enigmatic Tenno, a race of ancient warriors wielding blade and gun, who are awakened from centuries of cryo-sleep by the Lotus to restore order throughout the Solar System. Warframe, which is already available on PS4, Windows PC, and Xboc One, features more than 35 Warframes, hundreds of weapons and thousands of customization options, the ability to upgrade weapons armor and items using a flexible mod system, and the ability to join clans, nurture pets, and explore massive new open worlds. It’s unclear how much of the game will be coming to the Nintendo Switch as a port or when that version will arrive.

He also noted that Panic Button has spent more time working on bringing big AAA titles from other platforms to the Switch than most. Adding that his studio has spent nearly six years working with Nintendo’s Switch hardware, including early development tech.

“Unfortunately, the change of the Switch release date has affected its Network Test and it will be arranged separately from the test for PS4/XB1,” From Software wrote in the Tweet. “Network Test dates for the Switch will also be announced at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Originally, after the Switch port was announced during a Nintendo Direct on March 8, the Network Test was supposed to launch on the Nintendo eShop “soon,” though no specific date was ever given.

It was announced last week that the Nintendo Switch version of “Dark Souls: Remastered” was being delayed from its original May 25 release date to an unspecified date later this summer. “The new release timing gives the development team the time needed to make sure Nintendo Switch players can fully appreciate the true ‘Dark Souls’ experience anytime and anywhere, thanks to the unique portable nature of the Nintendo Switch console,” publisher Bandai Namco said in a press release at the time. The company didn’t offer any other specifics about the delay, nor did it immediately respond to Variety’s comment request.

“Dark Souls: Remastered” is still set to be released on May 25 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

“Dark Souls: Remastered,” as the name implies, is a remastered version of From Software’s 2011 game “Dark Souls.” Though not the first “Souls” game, having been a spiritual successor to the developer’s 2009 game “Demon Souls,” “Dark Souls” catapulted the series to cult-classic territory. It’s since been followed by two sequels, released in 2014 and 2016, and its own spiritual successor “Bloodborne,” released exclusively for the PlayStation 4 in 2015.